


at a distance

by thefudge



Category: All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Related, F/M, diana/matthew fans should proooobably steer clear, haven't read the books so i'm making some stuff up, tired of white girl speshul protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: She had told him once she would grieve for Bertrand until the end of time, and he’d said, rather cavalierly, that he had all the time in the world.





	at a distance

**Author's Note:**

> This was written out of spite, kind of. But not really.   
> I did want to explore Matthew/Miriam because it seems like a pretty fascinating dynamic, given their background. I haven't read the books, I've only watched the show and what I cobbled from the wiki, so I'm totally making some shit up too, but I honestly don't care haha. I just had to write something, cuz I can't stand that there's yet another big-stakes supernatural series where the white girl is the most speshul, most coveted, most precious thing in the world and the women of color around her pale in comparison (or worse, are written as counterpoints to show just how greater the white girl is *cough juliette durand cough*). I'm tired. Really goddamn tired. Also there's no chemistry between Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer, i'm sorry, I SAID IT. so anyway...here's a thing I wrote to make myself feel better and just cuz I'm tireddddd

Miriam sat on the stone steps, dangling the cigarette between her fingertips.  She’d snuck into the Botanic Garden again. It was closed to visitors at this time of day, so she had it all to herself.  She liked to look at the crocuses, liked to stare at the violet-blue petals as they got leached of sunlight.  Oxford was where flowers went to die. 

She did not feel the cold, but she could sense it in the world around her. The trees shivered as the wind cast ribbons through the branches. She inhaled the cigarette smoke.

She remembered a scene from five hundred years ago.

She was in the Vizier’s garden, watching a party of revelers dancing and feasting on the terrace.  A servant was lighting the braziers.  One of the revelers knocked into him and the servant stumbled.  He overturned a precious urn resting on a dais between beds of crocuses.

The Vizier was so angry, he demanded that Miriam kill the servant and drink his blood, so that nothing remained of him.

Miriam said she would do it only if she could kill the reveler too. It was only fair. It had been his fault.

Perhaps the woman she was now would have killed the Vizier instead.

But no, she drank them both. She slashed the servant’s wrists gently and poured his life into her mouth. The reveler, who was an inebriated little man from Burgundy, she killed with less kindness.

A few days later she was walking through Aden, perusing the market stalls, when she felt the icy stare of a fellow cold one.

He was watching her from a safe distance. Her sharp senses could not find him in the crowd. He was well disguised.

He followed her for a few months like that, watching her comings and goings. Later she would find out he enjoyed being a remote observer, and he meant no harm by it, not really.

But back then she was a little spooked. She was older than this ancient port, and yet even very old things could be killed.

She had been followed by demons and vampires before, but never for such a long time.

She sailed to Syracuse soon after, believing that the sea would hinder his pursuit. From there she took a caravan to Palermo and sailed to Naples. By now she had emptied her coffers and needed to find a new patron to replenish them.  

One morning she was summoned to the palazzo Santangelo. She had courted the Carafa family before without success. This time, she was received in the antechambers by the patriarch, Diomede, himself. And next to him stood a tall man, taller than any man in Naples, dark of features, broad and elegant. There was something modern about him, as if he’d come from the future.

And call it cold intuition, but she knew right away her pursuer had always been a step ahead of her.

“Mateo,” he introduced himself and kissed her hand, his eyes never leaving her face.

That was the thing with Matthew. He only let himself be known at the right time.

Like right now, for instance. She knew he was in the Garden, had been for a while. He was watching her, but he would only reveal himself when he thought it pertinent.

Miriam smiled to herself.

She took another drag of her cigarette.

“You really ought to quit,” he said, coming up behind her.

He leaned against the weathered chapel frontispiece.  

Miriam shrugged. “You ought to drink less.”

She could sense his smile.  

“Well, not tonight surely. Tonight I think you’ll wish to drink with me.”

Miriam glanced sideways. “You sound chipper. I don’t like it.”

Matthew took a step towards her and bent down. He took the cigarette from her hand and crushed it between thumb and forefinger. He turned his head to her and his lips almost touched her cheek. “I’ve found another witch for you.”

 

 

Miriam removed the rubber gloves.

The pretty blonde was most definitely a witch. She reeked of it. The blood of the sun, the blood of the earth, the blood of the moon.  

A Bishop too, which was a delicatessen all on its own.

She was a perfect study for Miriam, though she’d have to work on her quickly before she began to rot.

But first, a taste.

Matthew handed her the glass filled with the rich liquid, the essence of a necromancer.

“How did she die?”

Her companion lifted a delicate eyebrow. “Who can say? We live in troubled times, and a witch is never safe.”

He had not killed her, that much Miriam could tell, but he had not saved her either.

She looked into his eyes. “Do you really think – her blood might heal us?”

They’d dissected and examined a dozen witches from various covens already and nothing had restored their ability to propagate as of yet.

“I’m told she’s special. She just might do the trick.”

As he said this, Matthew rested his hand on the small of her back and drew her close. “Let’s find out.”

Their hands entwined, they drank from the glasses.

 

 

He’d always said a “child” might do them good. There was Marcus, of course, but someone they had both sired would have a deeper impact on their bond. Miriam didn’t want to be a mother, but she’d love to teach someone the ways of the blood, how to study it, how to read it, how to make it sing.

She sat in his lap and brushed her fingers through his hair.

She had once thought he was so modern, but it turned out he was quite old-fashioned. He’d had the same haircut since the Siege of Khartoum.

As if divining her thoughts, he reached out and touched the studs that dotted her left ear. She was a daughter of time who adapted much easier than him.

 “We shouldn’t have drunk so much corpse blood,” she said against his lips. Their mouths were still dewed in blood. “It always makes us sick.”

 “Sick with what?” he said, teasing her lips with his tongue.

She didn’t answer, but he made use of her silence. He tore off her shirt, like dragging a knife down her spine.  

 

 

He used to pass her off as a younger sister, even a daughter. As they traveled around the world, the scientist and his apprentice, they wanted to attract little attention, and to announce that they were lovers would have complicated matters.

The century they currently inhabited provided more freedom, but they liked the secrecy, so sometimes they still passed off as family, because that is what they were, in a sense.  

Matthew had never had a true mate, but she had lost her mate and husband in the eleventh century. Vampires mate for life. She had told him once she would grieve for Bertrand until the end of time, and he’d said, rather cavalierly, that he had all the time in the world.

Matthew Clairmont had decided he wanted the widowed girl, the girl who had killed both servant and nobleman, who had traveled from place to place because she always seemed to get in trouble.

The girl who might never be his, who was not his now, even as he sank inside her and bit into her cold skin, because her heart was still mid-flight, still yearning for a ghost.

He was the one who had killed her husband, of course. And after the deed was done, he went looking for the wife to kill her too. But he had stayed his hand for five hundred years, watching her as she grieved and raged and tried to make sense of her loneliness.

Her yearning became his yearning.

When the time was right, he let her know he was following her. Not a moment before.

Miriam pinned him to the bed and raised herself over him, dark hair falling down her back. Her eyes surveyed him with love and contempt. Perhaps she knew. Perhaps she knew deep down what he had done but could not bring herself to hate him.

No, the best punishment was to make love to him while a part of her was still removed, untouchable.  

Matthew gripped her to him and buried his face in her throat, knowing that he would always be following at a distance.

 


End file.
